


Runaway

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, During Canon, Established Relationship, First Time, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-07
Updated: 2008-10-07
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8709682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: Sammy is contemplating his decisions in life, listening to a song.  Unbeta'd - all mistakes are my own.Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable - this pertains to the lyrics (Thriving Ivory's) and Supernatural stuff.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).

He touched his iPod to life then scrolled to his favorite of the moment band – one whose lyrics actually spoke beautifully. He pressed the buds into his ears and took up his pencil again, idly tapping it against his book.  
Sam was quiet as he stared blankly out at the rain making the world outside an underwater world of gray and blue. It reminded him suddenly of watching the world fly by in smears of greens and blues from the backseat of a classic Chevrolet.  
 _I am more than you know, street lights and open roads._  
That was a world that he missed and regretted more than anything in the world. A world that he couldn’t tell Jessica about.  
The library’s windows were huge steel and bubbled glass things set securely into stone walls moss and ivy on the outside and dusty and grimy on the inside. The whole place was saturated with the smell of damp pages and fading ink, films going monochromatic and bindings ungluing. He loved this place – his sanctuary in his self imposed exile.  
 _I am more than a face, stuck living in one place, so call me California_  
No he was more than a single face, never changing, never moving. He’d been a million faces over his short, short lifetime – and never, never staying still long enough to see which one fit the best.  
Sam breathed in deep and felt, not for the first time, that he should be someplace else, should be doing something else. He sighed out the breath and rested his chin on his fist and lost himself briefly. He missed the warmth that used to infuse through his entire being, he missed his brother.  
 _Call me what you will, ‘cause I am bigger than this place, and so far from alone._  
But a frown tugged his mouth down at the corners and he turned away from the window to stare blindly at the books and sloppily highlighted notes scattered out before him. Thinking of Dean always brought thoughts of his father. One was his hurt and one was his salvation, and he’d been forced to abandon both.  
Forced to abandon all that made him human, made him whole. His skin didn’t fit right in this town, and the girl he’d begged to love made that falsity itch even more. And he felt guilty over that too. His guilt encompassed so, so much. Too much, really, for him to handle and stay sane.  
 _I don't believe in your hate 'cause these scars are gonna fade._

_So pour me out like water, and soak me up like rain._  
He thought of their arguments and their _fights_ , his and his father’s. He sank a little lower in his chair. He refused to allow himself to be so afraid and depressed, he hadn’t _wanted_ to leave his family. He hadn’t wanted to _runaway_. He hadn’t wanted to see Stanford as the resting place between roads – the road where he’d left Dean and the road where he’d meet him again. But that’s what it was, he knew that now.  
Well, he could _admit_ that now anyway. He knew that _normal_ (his misconception of the idea, his hope of the idea) was relative – figuratively and literally. He knew that a little too well, nowadays.  
But that always begged the question of whether Dean would be there to meet him. After the way he’d left him alone and then been too scared to pick up a phone. Too lost, too regretful. He figured he had to grow up sometime, his brother probably didn’t want to live the rest of his life _taking care of Sammy._  
 _Like a runaway, I spend these nights counting stars, like a runaway._

_And maybe I could call this home tonight, like a runaway._  
He’d been gone three years. Three years of cowardice on his part and pain on Dean’s, Sam got that. But John had said _get gone and stay that way_ ; Sammy, stupid, _stupid_ Sammy had figured that their dad had spoken on Dean’s behalf as well.  
 _I whisper all these secrets, to a blank page on a line._

_I said we don't speak like lovers, and my words are dripping with wine._  
Sam winced and rubbed his face roughly with fisted hands. Didn’t those lines tell it like it was? No one to tell his secret sins too, and that love that drove him to desperately try to reclaim his perceived normality. He grimaced and shook his head. He felt so fucking guilty, for having _pretended_ to give Jessica that which was so clearly _never_ his to give away to begin with. He’d been _Dean’s_ , for forever - ever since he could remember anyway.  
 _So call me California, call me what you will, 'cause I'm bigger than this place - and so far from alone._  
But none of them would ever get what they _needed_ – Jessica needing Sam’s full heart, not just pieces of it. Sam needing Dean in a way no brother should ever be needed by another, and Dean needing a home he didn’t know how to find in a man who lost the meaning of the word twenty-two years ago. Maybe someday he could call Jessica _home_. He could wish and pray, but his home was painted black and held his soul as she drove him, head banging to cock rock, all over the country.  
 _Like a runaway, I spend these nights counting stars, like a runaway._

_And maybe I could call this home tonight, like a runaway._  
Sam was startled by thunder crashing over head and the library’s light flickering in answer. He gathered his books and notes and shoved them into his backpack before sliding into his coat and slinging the thing over his shoulder. He secured his iPod and the buds in his ears before heading out of the library, nodding to the librarian as he left.  
He didn’t mind the rain in California, not during the fall anyway – it was still warm, and it felt cleansing, almost. Even as it weighed down his boots and jean hems, soaked through to his skin and left it goosepimpled and chilled.  
 _When burning bridges won't come down, like symphonies without a sound;_  
He’d left for …numerous reasons. Most of them stupid, childish and spiteful. He’d left behind his only family, a family that still refused to truly let him go (he got those odd emails, those terse post cards, and the drunk phone messages and his heart ached that much more with each one) – Dean was never one to let sleeping dogs lie. Not if he could prove to his baby brother that he was wrong, _'see, here - this says you're stupid and should come home Sammy'._  
He walks home slowly, letting the rain soak him down and purge the darkness, if for only a few minutes. He’d been dreaming of death and fire and of hot, sticky temptations he shouldn’t – and both sets of visions broke his heart; one because she didn’t deserve that fate and the other because it would never happen, not to _Sam_. That was a happiness too far from _his_ reach.  
 _I spend these nights counting stars, and wonder if there's hope for me out there, out there._  
Sam stops for a moment, standing still in the pouring rain and sees a car, so familiar and painful that he nearly looks away. But it could only be the light making that paint gleam black as oil in the rain – it couldn’t really be what he wants it to be. It wouldn’t ever be what he _wants it to be_. Not the salvation in that rumbling engine, or the deliverance in the arms of someone who wouldn’t let him go for anything. But he had let go, and Sam had to deal with it, in whatever way he could _pretend_ to.  
 _Like a runaway, I spend these nights counting stars, like a runaway._

_And maybe I could call this home tonight, like a runaway._  
Clenching his hand tighter on the strap of his bag he shoulders on through the suddenly cold and biting rain. Piercing and cruel ripping him to shreds, flaying him open for God and all to see. He wants to _believe_ so badly that someday he won’t be a runaway anymore – and that he’ll find that road where Dean is waiting. He grins something dark and ferocious and gut wrenchingly terrible up at the sky, yeah right. _I’ll never find that road_ , he thinks and he goes into his apartment building – closing the door on the weather and his forged hopes.  
He opens the door to cookies and blonde curls and laughing eyes as she chatters on the phone to her older sister. But her laughter dies off slowly and those big blue eyes see him with a knowing that makes him feel even guiltier for the charade he tries to keep going. He closes the apartment door, refusing to think anymore.  
 _Like a runaway, I spend these nights counting stars, like a runaway._

_And maybe I could call this home tonight, like a runaway._  
His song is over anyway.

_fini_


End file.
